Lytro Unveils Perspective Shift and Living Filters for New Ways to
Experience Living Pictures

November 15, 2012 06:30 PM Eastern Time

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lytro
Inc., creator of the world’s first consumer light field camera,
announced today it will unveil a new light field technology capability
for the Lytro camera with Perspective Shift as well as new creative
tools with Living Filters. These features will be available to customers
starting December 4th via a free Lytro Desktop software
update.

“By capturing the light field, the Lytro camera lets photographers
achieve things that were never before possible. The first groundbreaking
capability was focusing pictures after they were taken and now we are
excited to offer Perspective Shift, which brings living pictures to life
in an entirely new way”

Perspective Shift lets Lytro photographers interactively change the
point of view in a picture after it has been taken. On a computer or
mobile device, viewers can move the living picture in any direction –
left, right, up, down and all around. When pictures are shared to the
web, Facebook and Twitter, friends can experience Perspective Shift
without needing any special software. Perspective Shift also works
retroactively on any light field pictures previously taken with a Lytro
camera.

“By capturing the light field, the Lytro camera lets photographers
achieve things that were never before possible. The first groundbreaking
capability was focusing pictures after they were taken and now we are
excited to offer Perspective Shift, which brings living pictures to life
in an entirely new way,” said Ren Ng, founder and executive chairman of
Lytro.

“The new Perspective Shift from Lytro is fun and artistic! I've had a
wonderful time running around with my Lytro camera to grab little scenes
and bend them into this new way of seeing living photos. The idea that
you can take any little scene and make it like interactive
Matrix-bullet-time is really cool," said Trey Ratcliff, renowned
landscape photographer and Lytro pro-shooter team member.

In addition to Perspective Shift, Lytro announced a new way to enhance
light field pictures with Living Filters. With a single click, Lytro
photographers will be able to apply one of nine interactive filters to
their pictures and change the look of the picture based on light field
depth. Unlike traditional digital photo filters, Living Filters create
additional effects as viewers interact with a picture. Living Filters is
a free update to Lytro Desktop and works on all Lytro light field
pictures, including retroactively.

New Living Filters:

Carnival: Twist and distort your picture as you refocus and
change perspective as if you’re in a funhouse of mirrors.

Crayon: Add a touch of color to a monochrome version of your
picture. Click to focus and add color into your scene, or change your
perspective and add color back into your scene as you explore.

Glass: Put a sheet of virtual glass into your scene. Everything
in front of where you click will be unchanged, and everything behind
will appear to be behind a piece of frosted glass.

Line Art: Reduce your scene to a grayscale outline, seeing more
detailed lines where you refocus.

Mosaic: Create a tiled mosaic in the out-of-focus parts of your
scene as you click or change your perspective.

Blur+: Significantly enhance the amount of blur in the
out-of-focus parts of your scene.

Pop: Make parts of your scene pop out with extra detail and
vibrancy when those areas are clicked.

Film Noir: Add a moody and stylized black and white look to
your pictures, with a little bit of extra detail and color where you
click.

8-Track: Bring back the ‘70s with this filter that adds an
aged, vignetted look to your pictures. Click to un-age parts of your
scene and see them come back to life, disco suit not required.

“Having the ability to play with tiles of your living pictures while you
refocus with Mosaic or to give an evening shot more drama with Film Noir
will let Lytro camera owners and their friends and family have even more
fun with the light field and the living pictures it creates,” said Eric
Cheng, director of photography at Lytro.

To view Lytro pictures and get more information on Perspective Shift and
Living Filters, visit these picture galleries:

Lytro is transforming the camera into a powerful computational
photography platform, forever changing the way everyone takes and
experiences pictures. The first Lytro Light Field Camera offers
photographic capabilities never before possible, such as focusing a
picture after it’s taken, and creates interactive living pictures that
can be endlessly refocused and enjoyed by friends and family online.
Founder and Executive Chairman Ren Ng, whose Ph.D. research on light
field photography won Stanford University’s prize for best thesis in
computer science in 2006 as well as the internationally recognized ACM
Dissertation award, founded the company in 2006.